Dear Laurie:
The little Billiard novelty you forwarded did arrive safely. Forgive my careless neglect. But the truth is these endless inventions depress me. I grow moody and irritable at the sight of so much ingenuity expended on twopenny toys, while this broken piece of humanity goes to the scrap-heap for lack of means of repair.
Will the inventors never turn their attention to improving the human machine? Will no spur prick the sides of their ambition that it may leap to something higher than the peddling of petty ideas for the smoother running of a toothed wheel?
When Fate has frowned upon a man who gloried in the use of his limbs, and compelled him to measure his movements by the caprice of a perambulator—from bedroom to billiard room and back again; that's my daily round—many shortcomings of this ingenious age become apparent to his impatient eyes And to-day as I lie upon my lounge looking out at that dull leaden sky, I long for some creative genius who will invent what will make such mangled dogs as I passably happy and contented.
What is needed in this abominable climate is a patent mental attachment which would enable one for the mind's refreshment to switch on at will all the joy of living, all the beauty, the emotional excitement that has been experienced in happier circumstances and under brighter skies; a patent attachment variably geared that one may adjust the strength and vividness of sweet recollection to the mental needs of the moment. This is needed now—to-day more than ever.
Why is it not forthcoming? Where are the inventors? Time was when I sat on the sunny side of life and loved my fellows. When Spring, with the breath of growing things in the air, or perfumed Summer with her scented garments, would make me open my heart to others in the most shameless manner. But now that life's second best gift has been withdrawn I am almost undone Friends — reduced to the position of house-companions for an hour —I pluck out of my heart by the roots, and, thinking of the great active world outside, sigh that I cannot go to bed— on the other side of time. With the curse of incapacity upon my legs I am reduced to enjoying my rambles in the open at second-hand, to feeling the joy of springy turf through another man's limbs—or to living in the memory of the past. And when Nature has the bad taste to neglect to provide the appropriate surroundings—as to-day, for instance when everything is forbidding and gloomy without— it is beyond the power of human imagination to ring up the dreams and memories one fain would enjoy....
Bah! What a puny, wailing baby I am' So lacking in courage and self-respect that a pair of palsied legs is sufficient to make me rail at Fate and look with sad eyes upon the world, while all the time I have the best sport that ever was invented to minister to my needs. Let me gossip with you again. Forget these complainings.
I have had the billiard table moved into the conservatory as we planned last year. And when the sun smiles I rig up on the bed that set of cloth-covered cardboard models which we made at Christmas to represent the bunkers of a golf course. You remember? They are ideal now The billiard-makers have followed my instructions carefully and turned out a beautiful set for me. Jack has evolved two more 'the grassy ditch' (a piece of very rough frieze stuff glued on a bevelled card), and another cross hazard to guard the right middle pocket. Both these take some negotiation, I tell you. Starting from the left hand bottom pocket, three times round the table gives me an 18-hole course; and a more difficult one to go over never was laid out. The angles and positions of the bunkers are altered for each hole, traps for the unwary gaping with ravenous jaws on every square foot of the ground.
Do you know as I propel myself round the table in my high-wheeled chair I never cease to marvel at the multitudinous movements assumed by the balls; and although I know the reflection is a commonplace among your top-notch billiard-players, I am not frightened at such commonplaces: I continue to marvel. The game goes so slowly with me now—it takes me about five times as long to move round the table as it does the complete man—that between the strokes my mind has more leisure than is usually the case, and, gripping with a firm grasp all the commonplace features of the game, it squeezes out of every stroke much more interest for me than perhaps falls to the lot of the ordinary player. At any rate, I can now understand Atalanta. The motion, course, and ultimate destination of the running balls have a queer and continuous charm; and had this wheeled chair and its occupant been living in ancient Greece when Hippomenes cast his golden spheres upon the ground, there would have been one other person interested and amused in their progress! Do I weary you with my blether?
Thanks, old man, for the Jumper Cue It's a marvel!
It came last night just when I was writing to you, and I left off to try the thing. I don't know how it will do for the purpose for which it was designed, but for my purposes it is just O.K., A.1. at Lloyd's, and all the rest. What is the neuter gender of prima donna' That's what the 'Jumper' is! It has improved my Billiard-golf to a tremendous extent, and in one night too. With this cue I can jump my ball over practically every bunker on the table, and am now seriously thinking of setting up as the Champion Billiard Golfer of my county!
The railway companies don't run excursions to my golf-course yet, but that hasn't interfered with my happiness so far I want to practise in private with this 'Jumper ' cue all over the course before the crowd comes!
"No-Bar."
The crowd came—dressed in black—sooner than he expected, a few weeks after the date of this letter. It is pleasant to be able to record here that during his last years some of the brightest hours my friend had were those he spent at his Billiard Table. "Billiards is the Universal Game," he would emphatically declare as he wheeled himself found the table, whimsically adding: "The Sport of Kings—and Cripples Eh?"
LAURENCE KIRK